Oh the Excitement!

Last weekend we had a great weekend of riding and relaxing....with even a chance to play minigolf!  (Refer to above photo)...It feels like a great way to lead into this weekend's race (Refer below) and next weekend's vacation (stay tuned for more details!).

As a cyclist, with the exception of road and high level athletes, it is rare that you get to attend team events.  After year's of playing basketball with other girls, I really enjoyed the rarity, at first.  Flashback to last April of last year and that all changed....

Snow to Surf is a multi-sport race that occurs in the Courtney/Comox area of Vancouver Island and features a trek from Mt Washington Alpine Resort to the beaches of Comox.  Each team has 9 members and each member has a separate task (with the exceptions of the canoers who paddle in pairs).  A downhill skiier starts the race off with a sprint in snowboots to their skis before heading down the hill, they pass of to a cross-country skiier, who passes off to a downhill runner who passes off to another downhill runner, to a mountain biker (that's me!), to a kayaker, to a road cyclist, to the pair of paddlers.

Last year was my first year racing and all winter I've been looking forward to this year (and hoping for the invite!) to defend our team's first place.  Beyond the race being fun, our women's team is lucky enough to have an awesome sponsor in PINK TRUCK ONSITE (the boy's team is sponsored by ISLAND TANKS).  Barb and Willy Conard (of the respective companies) clear out their house and feed 18 athletes for the weekend...along with the infinitely complicated task of keeping the rides and race day organized.  Both of our teams got a great little write up in the Comox Valley Record.  (Barb and Willy also entrusted us with our danderiffic, but tiger of 

a housecat Eric...We love Eric, but don't plan on bringing any other animals home with us this year!)

My leg of the race is relatively short--a 30-45min time trial that starts out on road, but then goes into some great twisty, swoopy, and fun singletrack!  The best part though, is the pre-race dinner and the post-race pints in the beer garden with the rest of the team!